Years to benefit from air fryer as you only save pennies per meal

Consumer champions at Which? compared an air fryer to an oven with a variety of meals to see the true saving in terms of time and energy and found that you only save pennies for every meal you make. That would mean it could take four years to make back the £100 cost of an air fryer - and then start to make savings.

In a video shared on Instagram, the consumer experts tested using a £100 air fryer and a standard electric oven to make a variety of meals, both for one person and for a family. They found that cooking for one person it would take you four years to save the initial cost of £100 using an air fryer.

They say you save £24.75 a year with an air fryer cooking for one person.

If cooking for a family of four, they say you would save around 10p per meal using an air fryer, and a total of around 13 hours a year in cooking time. Which? says you would need to cook 1,026 meals for a family to make back £100.

A spokesman said: "If you're looking at an air fryer as the saviour of your energy bills I'm afraid it's going to take a long time before the initial cost makes it worthwhile."

The experts used chicken breast, fishfingers and chips and a full roast in both appliances and used energy monitoring equipment to accurately track the costs.